lover's leap

American  

noun

1. a high area, as on a cliff, from which frustrated or grieving lovers jump or are reputed to have jumped to their death.

2. Backgammon. a player's move from ace point to twelve point in one roll of the dice.

---

Etymology

Origin of lover's leap

First recorded in 1800–10

Example Sentences

Unwritten tradition in many families has preserved ancient stories which border on the marvellous, and it may have embellished the tale of this lover's leap by an incident belonging to another age.

From The Pencil of Nature by Talbot, William Henry Fox

I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.

From Life of Johnson, Volume 2 1765-1776 by Hill, George Birkbeck Norman

On this theory the lover's leap, so celebrated by poets, might effect a cure, if the patient escaped with life.

From Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Darwin, Erasmus

For I, too, have taken the lover's leap, not to death upon the cruel rocks but to happiness everlasting.

From Fibble, D.D. by Sarg, Tony

It is a lover's leap, however, and love is beyond the hopes or arrangements of wisdom.

From Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis by Cooke, George Willis